where to begin

We are now slowly recovering from our busy two weeks of travel. If it is any indicator, James had two SOLID 2 hour naps today. Maybe he is growing, or maybe he is recovering from the excitement. We have many posts that relate to our time away, so we will begin at the beginning: the dry toilet conference.
Let me say-- it was AMAZING! People just do not show up to the dry toilet conference unless they are pretty interested in the idea. There were probably about 200 attendees, and all were gung ho for the toilet technology. My talk was in the "big" auditorium, and it was in front of about 100 people. Whoa! My last conference presentation was the last session, on the last day, in the room across the street from the main venue (so about 20 people, okay-- really 10-- were there). It was crazy and I was nervous, but it went really well and the audience had some positive things to say about my presentation.
My presentation was about waterless urinals that were installed as a part of the "Green Building renovation project" at the College of Charleston. In a nutshell, we had a $10,000 grant to make a 200-year-old Charleston single house on campus as "green" or sustainable as possible. Part of this project included installation of waterless urinals. My presentation was about how the waterless urinals, a highlight of the sustainable technologies in the building-- were kind of a disaster. First they were installed incorrectly by campus facilities staff, and then (maybe still), campus staff clean them improperly, ruining the odor-barrier cartridge that is integral to their success.
Well, waterless urinals are just the tip of the iceberg. Waterless urinals are all about saving water-- but composting toilets are a lot more. The idea is to envision waste not as "waste" but as compost. Though I think this is applicable worldwide, it is really being promoted in developing country situations, where all of the compost produced by a family can be used to grow vegetables and so forth.
Part of the conference included a tour to the "village of the dry toilets"-- I have to be honest-- I expected this to be a hippie village featuring a few shacks. It was nothing of the kind. There were eight beautiful homes (very Scandinavian, with a lot of windows and light-colored wood in the interiors). The families had varied ideas about sustainability-- some had gotten all of the sinks and windows for their houses second-hand. They all had composting toilets (and beautiful gardens). They also had a communal heating system where wood chips (this is Finland, where wood is plentiful) were slowly fed into this massive furnace that was hooked up to all eight homes. Some even had solar panels on their roofs. It was cool to say the least.
So, to begin our blog report of our wonderful journey to Scandinavia, first we feature the dry toilet conference. Here are a few actions shots. Me in the BIOLAN demo set up at the conference (Mike made me sit on it-- please note this is not a working model).
And some photos of the dry toilet village in Kangasala. First a photo of one house's sunroom